A Trans War Is Targeting Tomboys Like My Daughter

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Kishkumen
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Re: A Trans War Is Targeting Tomboys Like My Daughter

Post by Kishkumen »

Doctor Steuss wrote:
Wed Mar 15, 2023 5:34 pm
We must've lived during different 1980s.

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I am confused by your post. What kind of point are you making by posting a picture of Klaus Nomi, the gay pop star who dressed like a futuristic mime?

I love Klaus Nomi, but I don’t get your point. Maybe it is just too late at night for me.
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Re: A Trans War Is Targeting Tomboys Like My Daughter

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I was wondering if people read the open post. It proposes that there is a natural spread of interests children have which may not fit into the social categories societies assign for boys and girls. It is well to just allow for that variety as a good thing.(I agree with that idea) Then it proposes there is a campaign to change that into pressure to change children's sex to fit the social expectations. I think that is a misunderstanding of the situation.

I think I understood Marcus to suggest that society has been less accepting of differences than the post claims. There is a point there of course.
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Re: A Trans War Is Targeting Tomboys Like My Daughter

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huckelberry wrote:
Sun Mar 19, 2023 5:49 pm
I was wondering if people read the open post. It proposes that there is a natural spread of interests children have which may not fit into the social categories societies assign for boys and girls. It is well to just allow for that variety as a good thing.(I agree with that idea) Then it proposes there is a campaign to change that into pressure to change children's sex to fit the social expectations. I think that is a misunderstanding of the situation.

I think I understood Marcus to suggest that society has been less accepting of differences than the post claims. There is a point there of course.
I think that is a very fair summary, Huck. It also matches my experience in talking with trans men and women. From those discussions, this notion of a pressure to change children’s sex is either made up part tremendously exaggerated. The pressure runs overwhelmingly the other way.

Primarily enjoying activities traditionally associated with the other sex is not a sign that the person is Trans. It simply means that they enjoy certain activities. This misconception is why anti-trans folks confuse drag queens with trans women. Folks can be both, but there is no necessary connection between the two.

Based on what I’m seeing with my children and their peers (who are all adults now), I suspect the gender binary will diminish in importance over time. Like most constructed binaries, it is an oversimplification of what is actually some kind of spectrum. There may even come a time when transgender is an obsolete label because young folks won’t feel compelled to pick one category or the other. When the terms we use to distinguish sex (however defined) no longer are burdened with behavioral norms, people will have no need to define themselves in terms of those norms.

I also think Marcus makes a good point. The treatment of boys deemed effeminate was pretty horrific.
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Re: A Trans War Is Targeting Tomboys Like My Daughter

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My sister who is about a year and a half younger than me was called a tomboy. She talked about it with me on occasion where she didn't like the term because it implied she liked boy things. As she told it, it wasn't a boy or girl things issue, it was about ability. She liked doing what the group of kids we hung out with did and wanted people to not pick her last when we picked teams for sports. So she became very good at hitting, throwing, running, and catching the various sport balls we played with in the neighborhood. She wasn't picked last and practiced those skills, so to others that made her a tomboy. She learned about how to do basic car mechanics because she drove cars and didn't want to be reliant on someone else to change a tire. If it was something boys were supposed to know how to do because "boys" and not because there were actually reasons someone should learn or know something, she was pretty quick to make sure she wasn't left out just because she wasn't a "boy". But she was never someone I'd call masculine. My guy friends in high school thought she was attractive, her husband is a very straight guy who is into manly things. She set her career aside for Mormon reasons, had a family, but then went back to college to finish her degree and teaches physics and math in the high school in her community now.

I say that because I think the OP makes mistakes in defining the problem both now as well as in the past. The issue is in gendering. I suspect it's something that happens among those who consider themselves allies to the LGBTQ community as well as those who have a rosey view of the past.

It's indisputable that gender roles were intensely defined and defended in the period being described. So much so that a girl who wanted to ride bikes and hit baseballs got a label with "boy" in it. And boys who were interested in sewing and cooking might have been called sissies, a gendered term that effeminate them.

I think we have made progress in removing gender roles from various activities and interests that were heavily gendered in the past and still are among some people. But we make a mistake in both directions if we try to assert those roles involve arranging genitalia to match the old assignments. Sexual identity, attraction, etc., is another topic.
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Doctor Steuss
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Re: A Trans War Is Targeting Tomboys Like My Daughter

Post by Doctor Steuss »

Kishkumen wrote:
Sun Mar 19, 2023 4:09 am
Doctor Steuss wrote:
Wed Mar 15, 2023 5:34 pm
We must've lived during different 1980s.

Image
I am confused by your post. What kind of point are you making by posting a picture of Klaus Nomi, the gay pop star who dressed like a futuristic mime?

I love Klaus Nomi, but I don’t get your point. Maybe it is just too late at night for me.
Hi Kish,

If you haven't seen The Nomi Song, I think you'd enjoy it. It's one of only 3 musician documentaries that I re-watch somewhat regularly (the other two being The Devil and Daniel Johnston, and New York Doll).

I was using Nomi as an off-handed quip to note that the 80's, at least in regards to popular culture, weren't the epitome of the OP's retrograde caricature of masculinity. I was initially going to go with Bowie, but Nomi popped into my noggin (and found his way into my playlist for the first time in a long spell).
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Re: A Trans War Is Targeting Tomboys Like My Daughter

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Doctor Steuss wrote:
Mon Mar 20, 2023 2:26 pm
Hi Kish,

If you haven't seen The Nomi Song, I think you'd enjoy it. It's one of only 3 musician documentaries that I re-watch somewhat regularly (the other two being The Devil and Daniel Johnston, and New York Doll).

I was using Nomi as an off-handed quip to note that the 80's, at least in regards to popular culture, weren't the epitome of the OP's retrograde caricature of masculinity. I was initially going to go with Bowie, but Nomi popped into my noggin (and found his way into my playlist for the first time in a long spell).
Nomi Song is magnificent! I loved it when I saw it during the pandemic (If I recall correctly). Yeah, the 80s was very much a time of gender-bending fashion. Many of my favorite pop stars of the era were non-normative in their lifestyles or presentation. Bowie actually pulled back to the more normative for the late 70s and early 80s. There was that harlequin image he had for a spell. His gender pioneering really belongs to his Ziggy Stardust period, no? In any case, thanks for responding. I was really just operating on little sleep and a cold.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
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Doctor Steuss
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Re: A Trans War Is Targeting Tomboys Like My Daughter

Post by Doctor Steuss »

Kishkumen wrote:
Mon Mar 20, 2023 2:37 pm
Nomi Song is magnificent! I loved it when I saw it during the pandemic (If I recall correctly). Yeah, the 80s was very much a time of gender-bending fashion. Many of my favorite pop stars of the era were non-normative in their lifestyles or presentation. Bowie actually pulled back to the more normative for the late 70s and early 80s. There was that harlequin image he had for a spell. His gender pioneering really belongs to his Ziggy Stardust period, no? In any case, thanks for responding. I was really just operating on little sleep and a cold.
Good point on Bowie. Yeah, after the 70's (Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, and Halloween Jack personas) culminated in the Thin White Duke he seemed to settle in to just being... Bowie. Well, other than the Labryinth, that is.

I hope you're feeling better. I actually had a Sparks album pop up in rotation a few days ago and thought of you (I discovered them, and the brilliance of the persona that Ron created from you when I used to be on Facebook).
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Re: A Trans War Is Targeting Tomboys Like My Daughter

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Doctor Steuss wrote:
Mon Mar 20, 2023 3:09 pm
Good point on Bowie. Yeah, after the 70's (Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, and Halloween Jack personas) culminated in the Thin White Duke he seemed to settle in to just being... Bowie. Well, other than the Labryinth, that is.

I hope you're feeling better. I actually had a Sparks album pop up in rotation a few days ago and thought of you (I discovered them, and the brilliance of the persona that Ron created from you when I used to be on Facebook).
The Sparks are fantastic! One of the most prolific and ingenious but poorly known bands of the last five decades!
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
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